Half the price compared with the last offer.
VARTA Charger is also reduced to $9
Credit to Nick TB
VARTA AAA 800mAh Rechargeable Batteries 4pk $4 (RRP $17.95) + (in-Store & Click & Collect) @ EB Games
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When Ikea eneleoop style LADA 1000ma AAA batteries are $4.99 normal price, the RRP isn't laughable, it's derisible. Still, you probably have to walk less distance to get these, even if you're in Ikea…
I only just noticed that. Typical white ones are the $8 even for AAA but 1000ma are only $5?
Edit as per below: ok good I just misread it, I was right the first time
Yep, misread them myself. The little $3.99 USB powered charger [2 AA or AAA] was something noted for my next visit tho…
The little $3.99 USB powered charger [2 AA or AAA] was something noted for my next visit
Don't do it, it's a crap charger. pitifully low charge current, and doesn't have any form of cut-off when your batteries reach full charge, so you're guaranteed to over-charge your batteries.
Of the Ikea chargers, only the $15 LADDA charger is any good, and it's quite good. All the other chargers are dumb chargers, except for the $3.99 charger, which isn't even "smart" enough to qualify as a dumb charger.
Edit: I should qualify the above, although the charger claims "Charge is terminated by individual minus delta voltage sensors (-dV)", it's bull. It takes 9 hours to charge real-world AAA batteries and 12 hours for AA, according to the manual. When charging that slow, the -dV/dT effect doesn't happen. If you were charging batteries with teensy capacity, like 300mAh AAA or 600mAh AA batteries, then the -dV/dT detection would work.
@Russ: Ah. Good to know. I was thinking more of a little tickle-up for fading wireless keyboard/mouse batteries, but it sounds like it won't even do that. I still have my homage to the Chinese fire-god, Ritmo…
pretty sure the 1000ma $4.99 ones are AA. From memory, IKEA has 500ma($4.99) and 900ma($7.99) for AAA.
Totally agree Terrys, the IKEA option is the much better choice here.
Saw them weeks ago for the same price but was very low stock so did not post it or share with Mr Scotty.
But now you can't even add more than 3 to your cart..;)….[ only 3 available in the whole Australia? ]
Copy and paste from EB website!
Oh no!
We only have 3 left in stock of VARTA AAA 800mAh Rechargeable Batteries 4 Pack. Sorry!
Yes..EB Games…I'm sorry too:(
Is this charger any good?
I don't have specs on this one, but almost every charger that is made by a battery company is designed to damage your batteries slowly, so you won't get anywhere near the rated number of charge cycles from them. I've looked at a few of the Duracell and Energizer chargers, they were all designed this way (they are "dumb" chargers).
It's not in the battery companies' interest to sell you a charger that gives you good battery life, they want you to come back and buy more batteries. Nobody counts the number of times they charge their batteries, so people don't realise, and the battery companies get away with it.
I doubt it’s a conspiracy. It’s just they make the cheapest and nastiest chargers possible to sell a cheap bundle. They may not care if they damage your batteries, but I doubt it’s by design.
Panasonic’s bundled chargers (with Eneloops) are usually great, though.
The vast majority of Panasonic chargers are dumb chargers, you have to select carefully to get a smart charger from them. So battery companies can make good chargers, they just (mostly) choose not to.
It's not expensive to make a smart charger, the manufacturing price difference between a smart charger and a dumb charger is about a dollar in 1000-up quantities, cheaper in larger quantities. Here's a typical controller chip for a smart charger: http://www.ti.com/product/BQ2002/samplebuy
I don't consider it a conspiracy, it's just in their interest to have you buy new batteries every few years.
I'm in the electronics industry, and I've seen a lot of equipment that was designed to fail a year or two after the warranty period expires. In a lot of cases it wouldn't have cost anything to make the devices last longer, like "move the heat-sensitive capacitor away from the heat-generating part" when there's plenty of room on the circuit board. I've seen it too many times for it to be accidental.
@Russ: I’ve worked in designing electronics with similar issues. It’s usually not “accidental”, just deadlines, policies and miscommunication leading to a less than optimal design.
Nobody has: “make this fail after 36 months” as a design goal. But if it has a planned life of that long, all parts will be selected accordingly. Even if it would cost 1c extra to buy better quality components, they’re just selected blindly based on the spec.
You’d think someone would realize that for $1 extra they could make a product that lasts twice as long, and do it. But if anyone did, they’d be disciplined for “gold plating” the solution.
In the case of chargers, if the spec to the supplier doesn’t require a smart charger (and it won’t, because this is cheap bundled crap), nobody is even going to consider delivering one.
@Russ: "How to repair a broken electrical appliance
- The primary cause of failure in electrical appliances is an expired warranty. Often, you can get an appliance running again simply by changing the warranty expiration date with a 3’/16-inch felt-tipped marker."
FROM https://www.e-reading.club/chapter.php/79503/13/Barry_-_The_…
@terrys: I laughed at that. Here's a funny quote from the comedian Dave Barry:
"Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when he invented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again. This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely."
I doubt it’s a conspiracy.
No it's right out in the open. The chargers are shit and they increase the amount of batteries you buy.
@b2dz: These chargers are fine they are sold with batteries because the target market of these chargers are older folk who might not want to push 100 buttons to set a charge cycle. Even if i ask my gf to use my smart charger she won't know how to change settings.
The best charge cycle for NiMH cells is pulse charging so say 500ma pulse than a 1000ma pulse which is reverse to what a lithium uses. You can still use CC/CV but the cell will never be properly full.
Chargers to look at.
Miboxer C4
Liitokala engineer 500
Opus chargers they have various models@b2dz: I agree with Aussieprepper's recommendations, and I'll add one more to the list: Ikea's LADDA charger for $15.
It's an extremely simple charger, you just insert the batteries and an indicator light tells you when they are all charged. And you can have it almost immediately, if you live near to an Ikea store.
There are chargers with more features, for example I like the Liitokala Lii-500 that Aussieprepper recommended. It can test batteries, charge li-ion batteries too, and has a nice display that shows you the charging progress and tells you how much power was pushed into the batteries. But it's more expensive, and not as easy to use as the LADDA charger. If you have AA batteries, you can just plug them into the Lii-500 and its default settings will automatically charge those. But if you have AAA batteries, you'll have to do a few button presses when you insert each battery, to select the correct current (300mA) for those batteries. The Ikea charger doesn't have buttons, it's all automatic.
Edit: and while you're at Ikea, have a look at their NiMh batteries too. Look at the white ones, the tan-coloured ones are cheaper, but have a much smaller capacity.
Sunnybank Hills QLD have stock, also 10pk $9.98
Thanks OP.
got one.
Got some with click-and-collect from my local store. Thanks a bunch!
SA resident here.
I rang Marion - none, and they checked and only Colonnades has one pack.
Too far of a detour on way home.
.
Colonnades… Helps ya bum?
WA only Whitfords Armadale Wannaroot according to the website, didn't bother calling.
How do the batteries compare to eneloops and IKEA ones….?
Good price obviously, according to choice these were the worst they tested and Coles the best. Choice did review enloops and enloop pro but didn’t review ikea.
Coles better than eneloops and eneloop pros? What were they smoking?
Are Choice trustworthy when it comes to their reviews these days? Didn't they vote iinet best NBN provider of last year over ABB?
Who knows but don’t know a better comparison. When you look at the numbers the pros actually performed slightly better but value got the Coles ahead, $2/ battery vs $7.50. Against standard enloops Coles much better though.
I subscribe to Choice and I remember this review.
Many factors were taken into account to rate each battery, obviously battery price is a significant factor with Coles rechargeable batteries (which came 1st, 75% score)costing $7 for a 4 pack, Eneloop Pro (which came 2nd, 73%) approx $28 for a 4 pack. So around 4x more expensive. If you didn't include the price factor, Eneloop would have performed better than Coles rechargeable AA/AAA batteries in the Choice tests. The standard Eneloops (white) performed quite poorly, coming 10th out of 12 batteries 64%. Varta batteries came last😡😡 out of 12 batteries!!
Value for money.
non on SA 50** post codes…
Ive price matched Bunnings previously
How do these compare to the aldi rechargeables? I find the aldi ones fine for a four pack at $5.99. both AA and AAA are dwxent
im literally in ikea holding handfull of LADAs right now.
how dare this post. u know what it took me to walk through here. 2 of Sherpas died half way..You should have used a Fiori, they seem to handle the escalators better.
THIS IS SVARTAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
pretty proud got the last one in Armadale WA lol…only 1 though…meh..
Bought varta rechargeables before and they didn't last for many recharges and just wouldn't charge never again.
Expired? I'm seeing it listed as $17.95.
Sweet. Cheers.
No local stock for me and the $9.95 delivery fee kind of kills it.